Basics of Data Partitioning

Partitioning refers to splitting a logical database across multiple physical databases, each hosted on a separate server instance. This allows distributing the data across multiple machines while making it appear as one logical database to applications and users.

The main drivers for partitioning data are scalability, performance, and availability. By splitting a database into smaller parts, it is easy to scale out across low-cost commodity servers as data grows or workload increases. Load can be balanced intelligently across servers, and failures can be isolated. Overall, it helps in reducing contention and improving throughput.